


The Bottle

by KiraMae



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 16:12:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiraMae/pseuds/KiraMae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No longer on a vigilante's salary, Garrus can afford the good stuff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bottle

Walking back into the Normandy’s main battery was like coming home; the quiet hum of the engines, the muffled chatter from the mess, the smell of ionized air, all worked together to put Garrus at ease. It looked a little different. There were panels pulled open, exposed machinery and electronics everywhere, all evidence of the Alliance taking the poor old girl apart just to see how she worked, possibly tweaking things, making what they would deem “improvements.” His hands itched to get at the Thanix Cannon, to see what they’d done.

Without bothering to unpack, he dropped his duffel on the steel-grated floor, shoving it unceremoniously aside with a foot. The thought flitted briefly through his mind that he ought to be more careful… he still had that bottle he’d picked up in there, after all, and it was real glass. But he wasn’t sure where things stood with Shepard, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to think about why he’d been carrying that bottle around for the past few months anyway, so he dismissed the thought and threw himself cheerfully into examining his favorite giant gun. Not even a comm from the Primarch could distract him, and he carried on with his head almost inside the open panel, hoping his voice wasn’t too muffled.

He was startled, as he surfaced long enough to deactivate the comm, to find Shepard standing there.

 

“Garrus. Didn’t waste any time getting to work, I see.” Her voice was warm, her face in the same mischevious half-smile he’d been dreaming about since they’d been apart. He felt his heart skip a beat in his chest as his gaze locked with hers, and spirits, had her eyes always been so  _green?_  He’d seen so much death and destruction these past few days and in that moment, this woman was the single most beautiful thing in the galaxy.

He pulled his eyes away, attempting to play it casual. “After what I’ve been through lately, calibrating a giant gun is a vacation,” he said. He tried not to think about seeing Palaven burning over his head; tried not to think about how the bottom fell out of his world when, before they lost contact, he’d gotten word that Earth had been attacked and that Shepard’s status was unknown. “Gives me something to focus on,” he ended, while his mind whispered  _besides you and this war_.

“We’re going to need you for more than your aim,” she replied, her tone playful, her hand on her hip. Was the battery getting warmer? Damn humans and their lack of subharmonics; he couldn’t seem to tell if she was teasing him, or being suggestive, or…

“Oh, I’m ready for it,” he answered, hoping that if she was flirting, she would read this as an appropriately flirtatious response. “But I’m pretty sure we’ll still need giant guns, and lots of them.” If this were one of Joker’s vids, this would be an opening for a bad joke about the size of his “equipment,” but Garrus wasn’t sure he’d had it in him to pull off a line like that.

“Can’t argue with that,” she said. It was a non-committal response if he’d ever heard one, and this guessing game was driving him mad.  _Soldier up and take this head on_ , he told himself, butterflies in his stomach and mind on the bottle of wine in the duffel at their feet.

“Yeah, so… is this the part where we…”  _leap into eachother’s arms? Kiss like we’ve never kissed before? Make mad love shoved up against the bulkhead?_ “…shake hands? Wasn’t sure about the protocol on reunions, or if you even still felt the same way about me.” The more he spoke, the more he regretted saying anything. With each word, her face fell a little, her eyes growing distant. He cursed internally. “The scars are starting to fade,” he tried again, hoping to spark something in those sad green eyes. “I remember they drove you wild…” He was rewarded with her throaty chuckle, just as he remembered it from the old days, and his heart fluttered just a little bit. “I can go get all new ones, if it’ll help,” he said hopefully.

“I appreciate everything you’ve been to me, Garrus. A friend, a life saver…” and with each word she said, he knew. He knew he’d been wrong all along. He’d been carrying around a bottle of wine like a schoolboy wish on a dead star. She’d been with her own kind for months, and he was just an alien, acceptable as a friend but too complicated as a lover. Even as he nodded his head respectfully, agreed that he didn’t want to be a distraction, shook her hand and said “friends,” he tried not to let the stinging rejection show.

He kept his voice reasonable as they discussed the war, reassured her “we’re good” when she left, claiming he just wanted to get back to work on the gun.

But after when she was gone, he pulled the bottle out of the duffel, staring moodily at it as he rolled it idly between his two hands, while in his head he tried to rationalize it all away. She’d been distraught, when she came to him before, during their mission to stop the Collectors; she’d been brought back from the dead, her whole world rocked, and she’d needed comfort, so he’d been there for her. Feelings never should have been a part of it.  _But_ , another part of him flared angrily, _what about_ me _? I just watched my home burn, my whole world, I don’t know if my family is alive or dead… don’t I deserve comfort?_

The bottle had become a totem, for him; a symbol of the woman he was pinning all his hopes on. When things got bad, he used to pull it out and roll it between his hands like he was doing now. He’d ask himself, what would Shepard do? He carried on conversations with her in his head, the sort of advice she might give him on how to handle things. Once he’d worked his way through whatever the latest catastrophe was, he’d put the bottle away and go back to work.

Sometimes, when he held it, he’d imagine their reunion. He wondered if she’d be impressed; it wasn’t the cheap stuff from before but a bottle of the high-priced Thessia Red the asari had developed when their pairings with turians and quarians had become commonplace and there was a market for food and drink which could be consumed by both without harm. He used to imagine getting slowly drunk with her, seeing her in that rare state of relaxation, hearing that throaty chuckle he so adored while they reclined on a couch or sprawled on a bed. It wasn’t even about the sex. He had hoped he could get himself to loosen up enough to tell her how he felt and then maybe, just maybe, she’d say she felt the same way. The idea used to calm him.

That old pipe dream certainly wasn’t going to calm him this time.

The lights dimmed slightly as he sat there alone in the battery; the Normandy was shifting in to her night cycle. No one would expect to hear from him for hours.

He popped the wine open, taking a deep pull straight from the bottle, head tilted back and eyes closed. It was every bit as good as he had thought it would be; what he hadn’t expected was the bitter aftertaste.


End file.
